Posted on 08/31/2012 10:31:57 AM PDT by Kaslin
I wish the Republican Platform was binding.
Why? Because the GOP, for all intents and purposes, has just proposed to eliminate the Department of Education, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Department of Energy, the Department of Agriculture, the Department of Transportation, the Department of Health and Human Services, along with a host of other government programs, agencies, and departments.
More specifically, they endorsed the 10th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which means they put themselves on record in favor of getting rid of all federal spending and intervention that is inconsistent with the Founding Fathers’ vision of a limited central government.
Here’s some of the story, as reported by The Hill,
All federal spending should be reviewed to ensure powers reserved for the states are not given to the federal government, according to the GOP platform approved Tuesday. The platform language is meant to ensure all federal spending meets the requirements of the 10th amendment, which prohibits state powers from being given to the feds. “We support the review and examination of all federal agencies to eliminate wasteful spending, operational inefficiencies, or abuse of power to determine whether they are performing functions that are better performed by the States,” the platform reads. “These functions, as appropriate, should be returned to the States in accordance with the Tenth Amendment of the United States Constitution.”
For those of you who don’t have your Cato Institute picket Constitutions handy, here’s what the 10th Amendment says.
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
In other words, the 10th Amendment is basically a back-up plan to re-emphasize that the federal government was prohibited from exercising power in any area other than what is specified in the enumerated powers section of Article I, Section VIII.
And if you look at those enumerated powers, that pretty much invalidates much of what happens in Washington.
That’s the good news. The bad news is that the Republican platform will have less impact on a potential Romney presidency than this blog. In other words, Republicans don’t intend to live up to this promise. Heck, they don’t even know that they have such a position. That’s why I included the asterisk in the title and must draw your attention to this fine print.
But I suppose it’s good that they included this language in the platform, even if it’s merely empty political rhetoric
P.S. If they did abide by the 10th Amendment, it means that Obamacare also would be repealed.
P.P.S. Yes, this implies limits on democracy. Our Founding Fathers, contrary to E.J. Dionne’s superficial analysis, were opposed to untrammeled majoritarianism and wanted to make sure 51 percent of the people couldn’t vote to rape and pillage 49 percent of the people.
Let’s hope the GOP nads up and actually does some true reduction.
To a realm it had never been in before, I meant.
About your idea that Wickard turned Shreveport upsidedown, I’d like to clarify your confusion derives from the inappropriate inclusion of the registered carrier red herring and the mistaken attribution of “incidental effect.” Varying rates interstate lines was not some bug the perfectly constitutional interstate price regulation scheme accidentally stepped on. It was a major hurdle the feds had to jump over or blow through to achieve their dream of getting the railroads under their thumbs and stopping “predatory pricing.”
But like I asked: who said they could do that? In order to they had to exercise undelegated power. That it was necessary for the scheme is obvious, but not so that it or the scheme as a whole is proper. Hence their falling back on the intrastate price being substantially related to the interstate price. Which you say is because they were registered interstate carriers. But no matter, because intrastate commerce is not interstate commerce, even if done by registered interstate carriers.
You miss the forest for the trees focusing on the registered carrier thing. Why Wickard did not turn Shreveport on its head, and why it merely extended it a bit is that just like substantially affecting interstate commerce does not constitute being interstate commerce, being substantially related to interstate commerce is not to be interstate commerce. No matter whether you’re a registered carrier or not.
You might like to, but that doesn't mean you get to. You're going to have to do better than simply declaring it so.
That great Republican Nixon gave us the EPA and OSHA.
Liberal idiot.
The arguments in support of the claim of federal authority to act hinges on the status of the railroad as a registered carrier of interstate commerce. Without that, their entire arguemnt falls apart. Roscoe Filburn was not a registered carrier of interstate commerce.
I did more than simply declare it, and I think you know it. I said why it wasn’t “incidental”: otherwise why would it be in SCOTUS’ eyes “necessary”? I said why the registered carrier bit was a red herring: because it being so wouldn’t empower the government to regulate yge hours of operation of its hub or hoe it throws out its garbage. The feds were allowed to regulate intrastate rates because they were “substantially related” to interstate commerce.
Wickard did not turn Shreveport on its head; it merely extended it. Imagine if the farmer had been a registered interstate seller of wheat, if such a thing existed. Would Shreveport provide precedent for calling his growing food for personal consumption interstate commerce? No, any more than they would have called the registered interstate carriers growing wheat on railroad property interstate commerce. Shipping in intrastate lines was so called because first and foremost it was commerce, and also because it was often merely a leg of a longer interstate trip.
So there we have the difference: Shreveport was for calling non-interstate commerce interstate. Wickard was for calling non-commerce interstate commerce. I’m not saying the seeds of the latter were planted in the former. But I am saying that the farmer not being a registered interstate carrying railroad is not grounds for saying Wickard upended Shreveport.
“giving local residents better rates at the expense of out of state customers”
Assuming this is true, I don’t get the point. Colleges and universities do that to this day, and rather than make them stop the feds subsidize them.
“argument...hinge(s) on the status of the railroad as a registered carrier of interstate commerce”
No, it hinges on the activity under the microscope—charging so and so for intrastate shipping—is “substantially related” to interstate commerce. You can say that’s so because they are interstate carriers, but not so. Because, like I said, they couldn’t regulate any old thing the railroad did. Only that which was substantially related to the carriers’ interstate commerce was regulatable.
Thusly did Shreveport inspire Wickard. It matters not at all that Filburn isn’t a registered interstate rail carried. Shreveport wouldn’t allow the feds to stop him from growing wheat even if he was. Ti qualify under Shreveport he’d have to be involved in interstate commerce, the activity itself would have to be commerce, and it would have to be substantially related to the interstate part if hid operation.
Let me get down to the brass tacks of what’s wrong with Shreveport. The feds want to regulate interstate rail commerce. Fine. They could just control prices on lines that cross state boundaries. They find that some interstate trips take place partly on intrastate lines with unregulated prices. They want to control these prices, too.
Si they go to SCOTUS and say to tgd judges that without power over these intrastate lines their scheme to regulate interstate trips from beginning to end will flounder. So SCOTUS comes up with the “substantially related” test. And his does this pass constitutional muster? By a piece of reasoning that would get an F in Logic 101.
Here’s how it goes: in order to control prices on interstate shipping which travels part if the way on intrastate lines it is necessary to control prices on intrastate lines. Or, in other words, in order to control prices on intrastate lines ut is necessary to control prices on intrastate lines. Talk about circular logic. They want you to think they’re saying in order to regulate interstate rail shipping it is necessary to regulate intrastate rates. But they’re not. If that was the case they could just stick to lines that cross borders.
But they don’t. Because they want to control intrastate prices, too, even if it’s. Not in their power. They pretend as if their constitutional power is to regulate interstate trips from beginning to end, even if part of it takes place on intrastate lines. If that were the case, then yes, it would br necessary to control intrastate rates too. But it isn’t.
That is not consistent with the arguements presented in the decision. They state explicitly that their jurisdiction is over the actions of the railroad by virtue of their status as a registered carrier.
What you're telling me contradicts the plain language of the decision.
Just so. Many have tried to drive home the point that our founding documents are nothing more than script on pieces of parchment. In and of themselves they have no power except to the extent our "leaders" are disposed to follow them. However, as you point out, governments are not generally inclined to limit their powers but historically increase and consolidate them. Tyrants will almost always find a way.
The States and We The Sovereign People were to be the guardians of those documents and our form of government. The story of us is that we allowed a federal government, utilizing surreptious schemes and smoke and mirrors, to have their way. OUR fault, not theirs. They were just doing what governments do when they believe they can get away with it. If history holds any lessons, it's that governments almost always succeed. Will the American People and what should have been our first line of defense, the States, prove capable of beating the odds?
If we want our country back we'll have to take it back, THEY won't give it back.
They’ll never do it. They have no intention of doing it. They don’t have cojones to do it. But it’ll be fun to listen to the Dems all agogue over it.
Hamilton was the greatest expert on the Constitution that we ever had. He was the genius of the Revolution and the greatest political thinker since Aristotle.
Obviously sovereignty has the means to protect itself and accomplish its tasks or it is not sovereign. Our government was empowered to become sovereign which it could not do under the Articles. Hence, the powers of the national government (the “General” government) were greatly expanded while those of the state governments severely restricted in affairs affecting the entire nation.
Not even Jefferson and Madison denied there were implicit powers within a sovereign government. The constitution was not a detailed plan but only the outline, the basis of a government.
The Convention rejected the addition of anything which would prevent the discernment of implied powers or rule out their existence.
Congress was given the power “To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.” - Article I, Section 8, paragraph 18.
Thus, a central bank as a means of exercising those powers efficiently is clearly Constitutional. It aids the government in funding operations (civilian and military), collection of taxes, borrowing of money and serves the public welfare by restraining wild fluctuations in the money and credit markets.
The Constitution does NOT contain the word “absolutely” in reference to “necessary”. Hamilton destroys Jefferson’s misuse of the word “necessary” so convincingly that Washington signed the Bank Bill almost instantly after receiving Hamilton’s opinion. After all, H. was the greatest lawyer in the country as well as the primere financial expert and most prolific communicator of the Revolutionary period.
Marshall’s opinion about “necessary” comes straight out of Hamilton’s elegantly reasoned and expressed essay. Marshall himself compared his mind to that of Hamilton as comparing “a taper to the sun” and admitted that in every constitutional question his first consultation was the “Federalist” two-thirds of which Hamilton wrote. The greatest political philosophical work written in the Western hemisphere btw.
Funding of the National Debt is clearly constitutional under Article I, Section 8, paragraph 2. Assumption not only instantly made U.S. credit the equal of ANY in the world (it had been the worst) but created a money supply where there was none and allowed the U.S. economy to take off for the stratosphere. This brilliant achievement alone puts Hamilton in the first rank of statesmen in all of history.
As to the danger of an endless chain of implied powers, this is where judgment and honesty come into play. A constitutional act must not contravene the spirit of the document and at some point in the endless chain this would be violated.
A “conservative” party, whatever that might mean, formed before the destruction of the Democrat party would only mean the TOTAL monopoly of power by the Democrats.
This system is not like a parliamentary system. It is ONE or the OTHER.
Hamilton also understood that the MEANS of carrying out the ENDS specified in the Constitution were not specified but implied. Anything not specifically excluded by the document, or contrary to its spirit, and which is pursuant to the exercise of enumerated powers is constitutional.
Contrary to the commonly believed Jeffersonian lies Hamilton was a great patriot totally devoted to the Union from his teenage years. He was not a monarchist in any sense.
The problem is not the government, the politicians or constitutional interpretation but, as you point out, the PEOPLE. We have the government the PEOPLE wanted.
Until the people actually understand American history and our system there will be no change.
We need another president like Reagan who knew how to use the media (having been a major part of it for 25 yrs prior to becoming a politician) and could thwart its lies. There is no one with that talent on the horizon. So we have to take what we get.
Problem is that the platform isn’t worth the fart gas it’s printed on.
>> “Cutting Medicare and Social Security? Ha! Good luck with that.” <<
.
They will be able to begin whittling them down when most of my generation is gone, and the lion’s share of them are on prescription drugs that will kill them off within the next 15 years or so.
We have different definitions of a patriot. Supporting giving the central government the power to do anything not specifically prohibited by the Constitution is not patriotic in my opinion. This theory of implied powers is why we are in the mess we are in today.
I’d suggest you read Hamilton’s Curse by Thomas J Di Lorenzo which is the best work I’ve read on Hamilton and the contrast between his policies and Jefferson’s more enlightened policies.
Republicans going to refund all the money workers paid into “govt. handouts” like social security and medicare all their working lives? Didn’t think so. The politicians will consider all the money paid into those programs by workers as belonging to the politicians.
Actually I don’t want my SS back. I’m fine with it. Thanks to the thieves at the Federal Reserve and their QE 1,2,3 and zero interest rates intended to spur more debt and investment with the casino hucksters of Wall St, it now takes a million dollars to provide a risk free fixed income stream equal to what Social Security provides for many who have worked hard.
I personally would opt out of giving these weasels of Wall St my Social Security account. The most important thing America needs now are honest politicians that know about ethics and honesty and are not beholden to crooks.
I agree I’m not fine with politicians using SS trust and what I and others have paid into, so they can use it to wage their off balance sheet wars, run the Dept of Education, give welfare to global corporatists & others too lazy to work, and make Section 8 landlords rich. I tried to get the name of every Section 8 landlord and recipient in my community and HUD refuses to provide it. The government checkbook register should be an open book.
The system is corrupted so that only cronies of politicians are rewarded while we others are stuck paying.
>> “Its really very simple. If half your budget is borrowed money, your government is twice the size it needs to be.” <<
.
What if all of your budget is borrowed?
100% of our federal revenue goes just to service the existing, increasing debt. That leaves nothing to budget, so we borrow more.
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